Perfect Dark: Chasing Darkness
Chapter 4
The three operatives were out of breath and tired from the tense waiting that they had been put through while the emergency jump-ship was en route. Cynthia, sitting in the same alleyway with Owen and Henry, perked her ears up at every sound. Owen watched her silently, edging towards a worried sort of panic for her. Baltimore produced one nasty sound that had Cynthia vying to leap up on her feet but Owen placed a hand on her arm and looked at her softly.
"You're going to give yourself a heart attack, Cyn." He whispered after a small noise of laughter.
Cynthia sighed softly. "Cityscapes should be reserved for horror films."
"Ah, you wouldn't say that about Chicago, now would you?" He asked.
"The Institute's little slice of suburban Chicago is heavenly. The rest should be treated the same." She replied.
"I'm sure it's a much better place around here in the daylight." He said.
Cynthia shook her head. "It goes underground." She said. "Besides, we haven't anything from the real side of the city and I'm already sick of it."
"It's the adrenaline wearing off," Owen replied.
"My uncle lived up in northern Baltimore," Henry said. "He managed to come out of it alive."
"That's the trick right there. He managed." Cynthia said. "How long ago was that?"
"Ahm, seven years..." He replied.
Cynthia looked away briefly to cover rolling her eyes.
It was silence between the three agents until the pilot of their craft called to arrange the location of the rendezvous. The agents made it to the jump-ship without an issue. Then came the prolonged, nerve-busting ride back to the Institute, though Cynthia rolled her shoulders back in relief, which in turn relieved Owen.
Owen turned his head towards Henry. The young technician had his PDA resting in his lap and he was constantly reviewing the footage he'd taken. Owen's mouth twitched slightly but he said nothing.
The return trip thankfully felt faster to the Institute operatives. As the jump-ship hovered down onto the outside helipad of the Institute, the agents were in the processing of standing. Owen leaped down before the ship had gotten a chance to stabilize itself. He immediately began to work on stretching out his muscles.
The destructive roaring of the jump-ship engine halted. Cynthia and Henry entered out. Owen looked at his two partners before fixing the cuff of his outfit.
"It was a captivating trip, wasn't it?" He said.
"Yes. I don't think I'm quite up for another trip like that tonight." Cynthia replied, taking the lead of the trio and heading up the narrow, sloped corridor into the Institute building.
The sudden transition from the mellow darkness of the outside to the eye-piercing lights of the inside was hard for the agents. They each put their hands up in a small tent over their eyes while they headed through the stillness of the Institute's bottom floor. There wasn't a living soul to make a noise other than the footsteps of the agents themselves.
Henry reached the elevator first and stopped short of the glass door. He stood nervously for a moment before looking to Cynthia and Owen.
"I'd hate to break the silence with a wheezing box of glass like that." He said.
"It makes you wonder why Carrington didn't put stairs up to the second-floor offices over here," Cynthia replied.
"There are no stairs because his office is up there," Owen said, the faintest smirk hiding in his mouth.
Cynthia made a noise of disapproval. "It'd be interesting to see your reaction if he found out you said something like that."
Owen sighed. "I'm afraid that you might enjoy a thing like that too much."
Owen reached over and pressed the elevator's call button. The glass box shifted into life as it began it's decent to the ground floor. The box settled down and let forth a fine-tuned beat before the glass doors slide open softly, then silence returned. The three agents exchanged glances amongst each other before they stepped onto the floor of the enclosed box.
The elevator repeated itself and the agents stepped off of it. They gradually made their way to the door of Carrington's office. Owen slowed to look out over the empty marble floor below before turning his head towards Carrington's office.
"He's still awake, isn't he?" He asked, raising himself up with his hands and returning to his two companions.
"I would hope he is," Cynthia said. "Now, how he might look is another matter."
Owen hurried up ahead of the other two and gently knocked on the door. The other two agents stopped just a little behind Owen. Owen waited before knocking again.
His hand had barely lifted away from the second knock when Carrington's burly accent came through the door.
"Just a moment. I'm coming around." He said. His footsteps could be heard trailing across the floor of his office. A moment later, and the door slid open. Carrington, dressed out of his usual tweed suit and in a scarlet bathrobe, stood before the three agents.
"Sir," Cynthia said casually, "We weren't sure if you were awake or not. I hope we didn't disturb you."
Carrington waved his hand down towards her. "Don't worry about it, Miss Hall. I'm used to these sort of visits. I'd probably talk your ear off about how I'm never able to sleep when I've got agents out where it's dangerous." He paused a moment to look at the faces of the three agents. "Well. I hope you didn't have too much too much of an issue getting out of Baltimore."
Cynthia nodded. "Only a minor disturbance, sir." She said.
Carrington gave a portly laugh. "Yes, of course. It was certainly just minor when you called me a few hours ago."
Cynthia's gaze dropped slightly. "I'm very relieved to be away from there, yes." She said.
"She handled it very professionally despite the circumstances, sir," Owen said.
Again, Carrington gave a laugh, only smaller. "Mister Chase seems to have your back, Miss Hall. I knew I was doing good in pairing you two up." He said. "Well, feel free to come in. I'm quite curious to know how everything went for you down there."
Carrington turned around and went to sit down in a light blue, cushioned seat on one side of the glass table that was resting in the middle of the office room. The three agents waited until Carrington had settled in before taking their own seats. Carrington reclined back against the chair, gently tilting it with his heels as leverage.
"There's no need to get nervous about being in the boss's office. It's after hours anyway." He said. "You mentioned you were attacked?"
Cynthia nodded. "Men in almost full military attire. The whole nine yards. They even had dataDyne-issue Dragon assault rifles. I don't know what else could scream their involvement."
Carrington scratched the top of his nose. "The Dragon assault rifle is a commercial firearm, Miss Hall. Anyone could potentially get their hands on that kind of firepower."
Cynthia gently bit her lip in thought. "Yes. I suppose that's true. They seemed to appear out of nowhere, though. They were able to clear out the local police with little issue."
"I don't think that the police were there to actually investigate the place," Owen said.
"They let us in without doing any checks whatsoever, then they vanish. I think they were just eyes for a larger beast."
Carrington rested a hand on his lips and nodded. "Someone has the local police in their pocket over there is what you're saying." He said. "And what about the facility?"
"Terrible," Cynthia replied. "The explosive that hit the coastal security hub packed both a destructive, high-powered bomb combined with an Electromagnetic Pulse. It managed to knock out all the cameras." She said.
"Our attackers were smart but messy," Henry said. "I found the other security hub's computer shot up to high heavens, but I was still able to access everything through my laptop."
"Good. Grimshaw will be able to help you with everything involving that tomorrow." Carrington replied. He was silent for a moment before a look of contemplation on his face. "And where did the bomb come from?"
"The explosive had to have come from the sea. Though, I don't know of any craft that can fire off a torpedo or anything like that at such a speed that it would get past a perimeter sensor of the Institute's magnitude." Cynthia said. "I don't know of a bomb that contains both EMP and highly dangerous explosives either."
Carrington gave a conclusive nod. "Well, thank you agents. I'll get back to you on our next plan of action. You all look very tired and I'd hate to detain you from what little rest that you can get."
Carrington stood and gestured to the door. Owen and Henry left through the door without an objection, though Cynthia hung by the open door for a moment. She looked in at Carrington.
"Sir. I think the Alvarado Corporation might be getting out of hand over there in Maryland. Do you think they might have something to do with it?" She asked.
Carrington looked back at her and shook her head. "I certainly hope not. They're a den of vipers I'd not liked to get mixed in with." His eyes went downcast in thought for a moment before he shook his head again. "Goodnight, Miss Hall. We'll worry about it in the morning."
The remaining hours of the dark ticked away as the agents slumbered in their respective rooms. There was no disturbance until the sun returned to their side of the world for about an hour. The intercoms awoke the agents with its high-pitched screening noise before Carrington became the first person in the morning to greet the Institute's populous.
"Things have gone desperately on us. Report to the hanger bay."
Owen rose up from his reclined position to rub his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed at the noise. He felt groggy as he got onto his feet and took a few steps. He tripped over his feet and immediately crouched down. He sighed, shaking his head slightly with his hand holding it. He went to his suite's bathroom and splashed some water on his face before preparing himself.
When he stepped out into the hallway, he looked down the hall and saw Cynthia heading towards him. She had an expectant look on her face. Owen rose an eyebrow at her.
"Already figured out what the whole deal is?" He asked.
"I've got a few ideas, yes," Cynthia replied. "How was your sleep?"
He gave a short laugh. "I'd hardly call it that. Hell, it was barely a nap."
She flashed her eyes to the left corner while shaking her head. "You might as well get used to it."
He nodded. "Yeah. We're in the long haul for this one."
The two of them walked to the hanger bay. Owen went with a curious eye about him this time. Cynthia looked over at him briefly and now raised her own eyebrow.
"Something different?" She asked.
"Yeah. Kinda." He replied.
Owen and Cynthia were early in reaching the hanger. Foster and Carrington were talking brief to each other as the two agents approached. Carrington looked at them from the corner of his eye and turned slightly to address them.
"It seems our attacker did not stop to rest last night," Carrington replied.
"Another one of our facilities?" Owen asked.
Carrington shook his head faintly before looking back to Foster.
"After this, arrange a meeting with them." He said. "We're going to need to touch bases, regardless of how inconvenient that would end up being for them."
Foster nodded. "The closed channel, I would presume?"
"No doubt about it," Carrington replied. "I don't need a third party of theirs eavesdropping on us."
"dataDyne might be in slight disarray. They were in the middle of the nominations for their new CEO in place of Chang-Li." Foster replied.
"We'll see how they mention it when I talk to them," Carrington replied.
He turned to the two agents. "I fear my immediate suspicions were wrong." He said.
"dataDyne might not be the one behind it."
"That would be better for us, wouldn't it?" Owen asked.
"Relationship-wise, yes," Carrington replied. "I just hope they'll cooperate."
Carrington looked passed the two agents at the mass of agents pouring onto the hanger bay floor. He took the clipboard from Foster's hand and started flipping through the papers. Foster looked at Carrington with a slight interest and surprise. The two agents took a few steps back in order to mark where the head of the crowd would form.
Carrington performed his signature clearing of his throat before he began.
"As you are all aware, we've had a very tragic situation take place on one of our facilities." He said. "Unfortunately, we know very little about our attackers except for what information a few of our agents managed to collect from what was left."
He sighed.
"It would seem while we doing what we could here, our attacker decided to pick a different target. This time, our attacker picked the dataDyne Corporation. One of their warehouses based outside of Baltimore and everything inside was completely destroyed in the same manner as how our facility was hit."
He shuffled through a number of sticky notes plastered to the front of the clipboard.
"I've arranged a meeting with dataDyne in order to see what the best way to handle this is in the case of future attacks." He said. "Thank you for your continued effort. Dismissed."
After a few long minutes, the hanger was empty except for the original four. Carrington looked to Owen and Cynthia. "I'll want you two in the room with me when I begin the meeting. It'll be a good briefing for your next assignment." He said.
Owen and Cynthia furrowed their eyebrows.
"Sir?" Cynthia asked.
"Yes. Another assignment. I'll disclose the details with you afterward." Carrington said, waving them off. "Grimshaw wanted me to send you two his way. Meet me at my office when you're finished."
As Owen and Cynthia headed away from Carrington, Owen couldn't help but scratch the back of his neck curiously, glancing over at Cynthia.
"It should be interesting to see Carrington work with dataDyne first-hand." He said.
She lightly shrugged. "I'm thinking it's gonna boil down to being a contest to see who can throw around the most insults to each other."
He laughed. "No hope for diplomacy, huh?"
She raised her eyebrows incredulously and shook her head. "Nah, only Carrington will be respectable through the whole thing."
"Come on, isn't it a bad thing to underestimate your enemy?" He replied.
"Yes, I probably should not do it, but I can't help but feel Carrington will be able to wrap them around his finger." She said.
"If that were the truth, then Carrington wouldn't have had to go to all this trouble to figure out what the hell happened down there in Maryland," Owen replied.
"What he just told us is enough to guarantee that it's a third party who's responsible, not dataDyne," Cynthia replied.
"dataDyne might know more than we do," Owen replied.
Cynthia laughed. "I don't believe I could put that kind of faith in them."
Owen's mouth twitched downward. The two agents made their way up to the second
floor and headed to the very far right of the building to Grimshaw's office.
Owen slid open the door and moved out of the way. Cynthia moved past him and stopped when she reached the center of the room, shifting her weight to one leg and crossing her arms. Grimshaw and Henry were huddled around one of the desktop computers, their backs facing Owen and Cynthia. They had completed missed the door opening and busied themselves repeating various pieces of camera footage and basking in the glory of various computer footage.
Cynthia cleared her throat, but that too was unnoticed. The two programmers only shifted slightly at the sound of her. Cynthia twisted her torso and looked back at Owen, who responded with a simple shrug.
"You two can cuddle with your computers later," Cynthia said.
Grimshaw turned around now, a threatened look on his face. "Oh, please. These aren't even the make or model I'd think of doing that with." He said.
Cynthia's eyes widened subtly before she quickly shook it off. "The video from Maryland." She said.
Grimshaw nodded. "Yes, that. Well, the video is worthless." He said. "We did manage to find something on the audio side of things, however. Very good stuff."
Henry spun around in the computer chair he was sitting in and smiled at Owen and
Cynthia. "It might be enough to get an idea who we're dealing with."
"Wonderful. Let's hear it." Cynthia said, her arms crossed and a gentle foot tapping impatiently.
Again, Henry spun around and touched his fingers to the keyboard, not letting Grimshaw interfere when he tried. Eventually, the computer screen came up with the few seconds before the facility security cameras went dark. Henry dramatically pressed down on the space bar and sat back in the chair.
The audio was dominated solely by the screams and terror that filled the night of the attack. Owen and Cynthia couldn't help but stand uncomfortably while listening to it.
Henry seemed to dance about in his chair as the chaos eventually faded out and the clip ended.
Owen and Cynthia stared down Henry in confusion, who tilted his head in reply. "You didn't hear it?" He asked. He pressed a few keys and the same thing occurred, the terror being the only sounds the two agents could recognize.
Cynthia began to frown. Henry sighed at the sight of it. "Sorry, I might have gotten carried away. Here." He said, pressing a few buttons then cracking up the volume of the computer's speakers. All of them in the room cringed slightly at the louder, horrific sounds, but in the last few seconds of the clip, they caught the voices of living people.
Cynthia shook her head, turning her head so her ear was directed towards the speakers.
Henry bobbed in the chair a bit until it was over. He rose up and clicked the mouse a few times. "I've made it a little clearer now." He said.
The voices at the end of the clip seemed as if they were coming off from just shy of the left side, making the audio even more difficult to discern.
"The hand-held radar turn anything up?" A deep voice asked.
"Yes sir," a lighter voice replied. "We've got multiple signatures alright, but no idea where they are."
"Why?"
There was a moment of silence before they began talking again. The deeper voice started.
"Damn. I want something stronger then. I also want all the exits guarded until we catch these guys. They're no doubt Carrington Institute agents like we were informed."
"Should we fire on sight, sir?" The lighter voice asked.
"Yes! They are without a doubt armed and extremely dangerous. Carrington agents are nothing like dataDyne ones. Terminate them with extreme prejudice."
The camera finished its loop and the video returned, but the voices were gone.
Cynthia widened her eyes slowly in interest. "Well. That certainly narrows it down."
Owen crossed his arms. "Don't forget the officers could have also turned us into whomever."
Cynthia shook her head. "Regardless. I'm still firmly set on my own deductions."
"I'm not saying it isn't," Owen replied.
Grimshaw watched the exchange carry on for a several minutes before clearing his wheezy, high-pitched throat and rubbing his head with his hand.
"I'm sorry, but I must have missed the memo." He said. "What are you two going on about?"
Owen tilted his head towards Grimshaw. "Cynthia believes the culprit is the Alvarado Corporation and it's all because we had a run-in with one of those parking goons when we first arrived in Maryland."
Grimshaw scratched the side of his head before looking to Cynthia. "Alvarado, huh?" He asked to himself. "I've got some dirt on those guys."
Cynthia took a few steps closer to the computer monitors. "Really, I'm intrigued now."
"Yeah, yeah." Grimshaw mused, clicking around the desktop of the computer. "Here.
They've gone through some massive management rotations in the last month."
"That explains a lot," Cynthia replied.
Grimshaw gave a wheezy, loud sigh. "Well, no, it doesn't. I've only got what the media managed to dig up."
"Still, every bit counts, huh?" Cynthia said.
"I guess that the Alvarado Corporation is our prime suspect for all of this," Owen said.
"We're about to find out if dataDyne has gotten near to the same conclusion."
Henry spun around in his chair. "We should at least be relieved for Carrington. He doesn't have to assume dataDyne is the immediate enemy now."
Owen shook his head. "No, Carrington will still be on the alert. You never know what dataDyne might try, especially if they get provoked too far."
Cynthia shrugged. "It should be quite interesting to see what Carrington has pieced together for himself based off of what we've brought him."
Grimshaw chuckled softly. "Sure. If you think Daniel is as far in the dark on these matters as you believe."
Cynthia raised an eyebrow.
Grimshaw rolled his eyes. "Daniel has been around longer than you have. He probably has it all figured out, knowing him."
Owen smirked quickly. "That's some confidence you have in your boss, Stanley. I didn't think you had the drive to come out like that."
Grimshaw responded by raising his arms into the air and putting them behind his head so that he could stretch.
"Unlike you," he said. "I actually believe my work environment has value."